a reading journal

Popular Penguins

Bought two new books today. I’m on low budget right now – in terms of both $$ and time. Exams start in five weeks, and I haven’t seen anything bigger than a twenty dollar note for a few months now. But these cute little gems are only $9.95 each, so I bought two immediately. I gathered a whole stack – Breakfast at Tiffany’s, The Big Sleep, Perfume, etc – before I realised I didn’t have enough money. I ended up picking two I’ve never, ever read before. I think I once borrowed Lolita from the library, but I returned it without reading it because I was in the middle of exams. I’m not sure if this is just an Australian Penguin thing, or a worldwide Penguin thing, but I’m glad they’re bringing back the vintage covers, even if it is only a temporary marketing scheme. They’re so cute and classic.

Despite the lack of activity on this blog, I have been reading quite a lot this month. More Agatha Christies (can’t really blog about every single one of those, though) and a lot of Virginia Woolf. Haven’t been able to find more of her fiction – strangely enough, not even at the public library. I did, however, enjoy the much acclaimed A Room of One’s Ownand Granite and Rainbow, a collection of short essays on art and fiction. I also reserved my library’s copy of Hermione Lee’s biography, but I’m not sure if it’s worth bringing home – it weights two kilos at least. Virginia Woolf is quite easily my favourite writer; however, I feel rather uncomfortable about delving into her life. Somehow, I feel that knowing more about the author will taint my perception of her work. Maybe I’m wrong. Anyway, I might comment more on Granite and Rainbowlater, but until I finish exams, all I want to do is read.

Other non-Woolf books? I suppose I’m sluggishly getting through Thackeray’s Vanity Fair. Also unfinished on my shelf are Les Miserables, Middlemarch, Anna Karenina and Portrait of a Lady. While these books have been gathering dust for a few weeks now, I have sped through the Harry Potter series yet another time, with astonishing speed. I promise to dedicate myself to all those unfinished books once my exams are over. From Nov 6th onwards, I’ll have more brain cells to spare on George Eliot and Henry James.

“For me, the value of the novel, as a form, is that it is able to incorporate elements of every aspect of life - history, natural history, rhetoric, politics, beliefs, religion, family, love, sexuality. As I see it the novel is a meta-form that transcends the boundaries that circumscribe other kinds of writing, rendering meaningless the usual workaday distinctions between historian, journalist, anthropologist etc.”